Rather than do battle with poor visibility and having to strip and clean my bike afterwards due to yesterday's wet and blustery weather I decided to download Blender from Sufferfest and do an extended session on the hydro trainer.

Apart from needing a much bigger fan, I was wondering whay people think about how such a session compares to riding on the road.

Blender goes for an hour forty, and I was glad to get off the bike afterwards, but it didn't feel like a hard double spin class or two hours out around Akuna Bay and West Head. HR average was lower possibly due to heat soak limiting efforts (hence the need for a bigger fan) but I'm not so sure.

Riding indoors gets the work done quicker ( and smoother )... But yeah you need to cool the body down a lot. If you are about 22-25% efficient at best then 75% is going up in heat ... If you are producing 250-400 watts at the wheel then that's a lot of heat!.1h40m on the home trainer is a looong time... Don't know the session you did but if it was supposed to be tough then you obviously didn't push hard enough!.I can't ride a home trainer, I just find rollers work better for me ... But boy 2 x 10 or 20's ... Or VO2 efforts hurts like a mofo... You can achieve a hell of a lot in an hour!.Comparing to my group ride today... 3 hours riding... 1/3 of that was either not pedaling or in the recovery zone!.

I have started doing 3 sufferfest sessions a week and they will leave me completely shattered, almost spewed on the last session, and usually have trouble walking after. I do them as hard as I physically can, Definitely hurts more than a hilly 3 hour ride!

iaintas wrote:I have started doing 3 sufferfest sessions a week and they will leave me completely shattered, almost spewed on the last session, and usually have trouble walking after. I do them as hard as I physically can, Definitely hurts more than a hilly 3 hour ride!

3 sufferfests a week is a massive effort if you do them honestly i.e. with power or virtual power (trainer road).I'm equally shattered after a session and it takes a few days to recover. Most of them are between 95 - 100% intensity so they're meant to do so.

Saving for a power meter at the moment to improve my training, working with percieved effort only, but I am pretty good at totally smashing myself, i started with the "hunted" and physically couldn't finish it. Downward spiral was the one that almost made me spew but it was a pre breakfast 0430 session which probably didn't help! I totally love the workouts now I have a fluid trainer rather than the Mag trainer.